Not everyone was the biggest fan of The Beverly Hillbillies. Crucially, it seems that CBS took a big leap in agreeing to air the sitcom all those years ago. According to The Beverly Hillbillies by Stephen Cox, the vice president of programming, Mike Dann detested the series before it even reached the air.

After watching the pilot episode, creator Paul Henning's mother reportedly did not sugarcoat her opinion. "And for this, you get paid?" she asked her son.

Critical opinions aside, the series was greenlit, though not without a few key stipulations.

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"CBS took the show with one condition," said Al Simon, the show's executive producer. "The network had the right to premiere it on GE Theater which was then hosted by Ronald Reagan. But the agency that sponsored the show turned it down, stating it wouldn't be right for their audience."

Paul Henning knew that for The Beverly Hillbillies to be successful, he'd have to market it well.

"The words Beverly Hillbillies were not going to get a lot of people to watch the show," said Al Simon. "And the most important medium you could have was television. We began thinking the best thing to do was to get the Top 30 stations...Paul wrote very funny trailers, and we had our publicity man contact every one of those stations and ask for their logos and told them we were doing personal trailers for that station."

The tactic worked like a charm, and by the time The Beverly Hillbillies made it to air, people were already well familiar with it.